I have a M3A78-CM with a low power AMD dual core CPU on it.
The MB has 6 SATA, and I added 2 more controllers - Areca 1200 ('HW'
RAID for the OS), and a $30 4 port Syba SATA controller.
2 80GB SATA, and 10 500GB SATA in RAIDZ2 consume 160W (IIRC, but that
seems rather low, maybe 190W).Right now, it only is running 1 drive, and is consuming 100W (don't ask, I've moved things all over the place). Regarding power alone, I have multiple systems including Core2, AMD Athlon SP, AMD Dual Cores, and old AMD Durons, and 100W is typical. Except for a lone HP DL585 - that beast has 2 low power (55w) Opterons, and still eats 550W (without 2nd power supply plugged in.) I also have a couple Atom processor based systems (firewalls, not OpenSolaris), and they only consume 25W (no HD). I don't know if there are any > 2 sata connector Atom boards - I also don't know about OpenSolaris support. >From my experience (assuming single processor) - just get a processor aimed at the low power market, and go white box. A standard socket low power chip (eg. AMD Athlon) will save ~40W, an entire low power MB/Proc (eg. Atom) will save around 70W per system. Rick On Sat, 2009-06-13 at 00:10 -0700, chris wrote: > OK, the problem is simple and very common it seems: > - RAIDZ for data storage > - lower wattage motherboard and CPU, since it will be on 24/7. > - mainstream components if possible, to keep costs in control > > The motherboard should have at least 4 SATA connectors, preferably more, > let's say 6 or 8 to keep it mainstream. For more disks, an extra sata > controller (or more) can be added. > > Here is my understanding: > > About the motherboard and the CPU, which will almost always be idling: > > On the AMD side, 780G chipsets seem to be fairly efficient (though they do > have a large heatsink, and it does get quite hot). Older processors are quite > low power when idling (according to > http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-penryn-4ghz-air-cooling,1712-13.html), > but Cool'n'quiet is only supported in Opensolaris for later (10h) CPUs, > which are more power-hungry when idling > (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-phenom-9600-black-edition,1767-14.html). > > On the Intel side, idling CPU power usage seems rather higher, and mother > boards have to do more as the CPUs lack AMD's integration, so the situation > is a bit bleak as well. > > Among the general-public controllers, Maxwell and SIL-3224 -based ones seem > to give the least headaches (but still no certainty) if I summarise the posts > I have read correctly. > > Is my understanding correct? What would you recommend? Thanks. _______________________________________________ storage-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/storage-discuss
